1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to repairing molded polyolefin objects and, more particularly, to a method and composition for cosmetically repairing a surface blemish in such an object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Polyolefin plastics are a broad category of materials including, but not limited to, polyethylene, polypropylene, and ethyl-vinyl acetate. Numerous everyday objects are made from polyolefin plastics (sometimes hereafter "objects" or "polyolefin objects.") Such objects are commonly formed from various molding operations such as injection molding, blow molding, rotational molding, and so on.
The manufactures of polyolefin objects generally strive to achieve highly efficient, cost-effective manufacturing processes to effectively compete in their given markets. The foregoing molding processes invariably damage a certain percentage of the objects, however, due to bad parting lines, trapped air pockets, tight mold radii, difficult to mold resins, and the like. The damage is often only cosmetic and not structural. The "damaged" object, therefore, could easily perform its intended task. Because it is not marketable in its damaged condition, however, the damaged object is usually discarded or ground up and re-molded into subsequent objects, thereby increasing the overall manufacturing cost and lowering the quality of the subsequent objects.
There remains a need, therefore, for a method and composition for salvaging polyolefin objects which are nominally defective due only to cosmetic blemishes.